Dear everyone,

Well, we're simply staggered.

We started this album project--the planning, the fundraising, the huge commitment of time and energy and resources necessary at the start (without any guarantee whatsoever of a result)--with plenty of trepidation. Every time we make something and decide to share it, it's a risk; an album is a BIG artistic and financial risk, especially these days.

We--Sam and Katharine--could not be any more grateful for the huge upswell of support and cheerleading of the last month or two. Not only do your contributions, adding up to more than € 17k, finally reassure us that we won't lose money on this precious labor of love--you've also sent us out into the next phase with the wind in our backs. It means the world to read your encouraging comments and emails, to hear what you love in the music, and to know that more than 100 friends clicked through, checked out our work, and decided it was worth supporting.

Our recording sessions have taken place in the glorious acoustic of Muziekgebouw Eindhoven!

It was a privilege to spend four days in that jewel of a chamber-music hall, immersing ourselves in this extraordinary music and text, bringing every fragment of concentration and love and preparation and strength to a finely honed point, making channels of ourselves to allow the material speak as vibrantly and truthfully as possible.

We had the excellent company of Frerik de Jong, tireless producer and engineer; Matthijs Jongepier, piano wizard; and the piano itself, a concert Steinway chosen for its tremendous range of color and powerfully expressive, rich sound. Recording is physically tiring work: we survived on pasta salads Sam made each evening, fruit and vegetables and chocolate and nuts, vast quantities of coffee, burgers from Five Guys (hard to resist when it's directly across from the stage door and you stumble out at 6 pm ravenous and exhausted), and--on the final day--a refill of Katharine's water bottle and teacup every fifteen minutes or so. Thanks to what felt like all the water in Eindhoven, we got every last song!

Frerik is busy with the editing now, Katharine and Sam are waiting as patiently as possible to hear the audio, and we're getting on with the rest of the creative and logistical aspects. Making an album requires months of work and thought from so many people, all tethered back directly to us.

It's hard to communicate just how head-spinning the last weeks have been. We've both had super-busy live concert schedules--including our debut as a duo in the Kleine Zaal of Amsterdam's Concertgebouw. (The audio broadcast of that March recital is still online, if you'd like to listen.)

And the album work, aside from the recordings and fundraising, has been intense, and intensely satisfying:
--we have a finalized title!;
--we had a photo shoot for the album artwork and got a STUNNING cover image (can't wait till we can share it);
--we have the beginning of a press release and a program note that will kick-start public interest in and discussions about this unusual music and why we've chosen it;
--we've put a bunch of preview material online (please enjoy some videos of us performing a few of the album songs live!);
--and we've had lots of communication with industry pros experienced in marketing and press. We're delighted that they seem as excited about what we're making as we are--that's a very good sign.

You'll be the first to see and hear our results when they're ready for prime time.

Our CD release date is November 17th. If you'll be anywhere near Rotterdam, mark your calendar for an album release concert and party. In the meantime, you'll be hearing from us about your thank-you gifts, as applicable. We'll be able to send out an advance single track pretty soon--with the full album to follow in the fall.

Truly, we COULD NOT do this project without your help.

Recording is one of the strangest, most rewarding, most absorbing, most expensive things a performing artist can do. It's always been a huge amount of work, but at least in the past, you could be pretty sure you wouldn't lose money on it--maybe you'd even make a little. Not anymore.

We have to plan and think and believe--
convince people of an idea when we're still searching for the right words ourselves--
begin to spend money before we've secured all the funding--
create and refine a musical vision for 70+ minutes of music before we've even heard it all in the fully-realized performances we hope to capture, making guesses based on our own deep preparation and others' before us--
and put in thousands of hours of work. Quite a few thousand. I don't dare to count.

It's surreal. It's so creatively invigorating. It's SO difficult. And we hope you agree, when you hear and see it, that it's worth the huge investment of time and heart and money: that our result is something beautiful, something that synthesizes so many things we love, something permanent.

So thank you, THANK YOU, from the bottom of our hearts, for helping us get there. You'll be hearing more from us soon!!

love,
Katharine and Sam

Dear friends,

We'd like to say a massive thank-you to everyone who's contributed to our album project thus far. Sam and I started this fundraiser with lots of trepidation—although we believe fiercely in the music and what it can communicate, recording is a huge investment and financial risk these days. So it's been hugely gratifying to hear from so many who believe in what we're doing and are willing to generously and materially support this work. We literally couldn't do it without your help.

I'm THRILLED to report that yesterday we smashed through our initial Voordekunst goal of €12k. Our friends have risen magnificently to the challenge, and we also received unexpected generous pledges from two granting organizations that noticed our project and decided to contribute: Gemeente Rotterdam and the Prins Bernhard Fonds. Wow!!

Our campaign was meant to end this week. We've decided to extend it to Monday 24 April and to raise the target amount in case there are still people who'd like to be part of this vital fundraising effort. 12k, already a daunting number, was as much as we dared to ask on this platform--but anyone who's worked in the recording industry for the last decade or two will tell you that the costs are higher in reality. We're encouraged to push through to the finish line and try to get as much of our budget covered as possible.

On Sunday 23 April, we will be performing a short selection of songs from the album and introducing the project briefly on the Dutch radio program Spiegelzaal. It's live from the Concertgebouw at 10 a.m. Feel free to tune in if you'd like to hear a teaser of this delicious music! And feel free to share our page with anyone who'd be interested in our efforts to bring these incredibly imaginative songs to as wide an audience as they deserve.

More soon—we'll update you from the far side!

love, Katharine & Sam